Another pro-Trump media outlet throws in the towel.
"Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s Tuesday testimony ought to ring the death knell for former President Donald Trump's political career. Trump is unfit to be anywhere near power ever again." The Washington ExaminerThe Washington Examiner joins National Review and the Murdoch-owned New York Post and the Wall Street Journal.
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None of the previously Trump-oriented print media outlets are any less conservative than before, nor less anti-Biden. But they are jettisoning Trump personally. Trump has become an embarrassment.
Trump is an enormously powerful storyteller and marketer. He had a superpower: Shamelessness. He doesn't admit to being wrong. He asserts as true what he wants to be true and he doesn't appear to have any reservations about it. Trump steaks are the world's greatest steaks. For real! Believe me!
Humans respond to the conviction and certitude of others. The charismatic con works in this current media and political environment where voters, secure in their partisanship, don't integrate the objections of the little girl from the fable saying, "But the Emperor has no clothes." The January 6 hearings show that people with law licenses and reputations to protect, and the military with its institutional norms, and most local election officials rebuffed Trump at that critical time after the election. They saw what they saw and said "no."
They lacked Trump's superpower. They felt shame. They felt it would be wrong to pretend an election was stolen. People would see that they were cheating. History would condemn them.
There is Kryptonite in Trump's superpower: The little girl in the fable. People close to the action see what they see. The pro-Trump media people are watching. They are abandoning Trump. So did White House aides, Justice Department lawyers, and military people, and the Vice President. Candidate Oz in Pennsylvania, having won his primary by tying himself to Trump, is now de-Trumping his campaign message. Senator Ron Johnson now pretends he wasn't planning on hand-delivering "alternate electors" to the Vice President.
I suspect Trump will not be the GOP nominee, although I would welcome it. GOP leaders understand that he would be the easiest one for the Democrat to beat. The American body-politic has antibodies to Trump now. Cautious people don't want to become the next Jeffrey Clark or John Eastman.
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The next administration could very well be a competent Republican, and such a president will push the country toward the populist right. The fear is that such a candidate will be a greater threat to our form of government than is Trump. I think not. Trump's attempted coup d' état was made possible by the GOP voters who believe Trump. That is what pushed some of their leaders into consenting to it.
Trump's superpower is rare. Trump's successor will almost certainly have a constraint Trump lacks. That candidate will feel shame. Humans are better at detecting a guilt-ridden liar than a proud one.
5 comments:
DeSantis’s superpower is his brazenness. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article262941378.html. Rewriting history to match the Christian-GOP revisionist view and forcing it on teachers and students is just his latest move. During Covid, he withheld information about infections, hospitalizations and deaths, encouraged behaviors that spread the virus and cast doubt on the efficacy of vaccinations. I consider him a more formidable candidate than Trump but still vulnerable because he would likely scare off independents with his extremism. He would also flunk the “have a beer with” test with many as he doesn’t actually seem to like people. And he’s thoroughly alienated the 10% of the population that is gay. But the idea of a younger candidate who pushes Trump’s policies without Trump’s baggage will be a real challenge to beat with current Democratic options. And DeSantis wisely is steering clear of 2020 election myths.
Conservative news media may finally be dissociating from Trump’s big lie, but the vast majority of Republicans (about 70%) still swallow it. They aren’t swayed by facts and don’t care about our democracy. They’re very stupid, very crazy, or both.
I will be happy to see a DeSantis administration and a Republican congress smash wokeness to smithereens, despite all the other things they’ll do that I will disagree with.
For the record: Wokeness, according to the Cambridge English Dictionary, is “a state of being aware, especially of social problems such as racism or inequality.”
Trumplican media has twisted that into a weapon of mass distraction, somehow convincing its fans that such a state of awareness poses a greater threat to our nation than the ongoing attempt to subvert our democracy by Trump and his henchmen - including DeSantis, who was an outspoken backer of Trump until he became a competitor. If we value our Republic, we won’t be so easily diverted.
The other conspicuous example of shameless disregard for the truth here is whomever is tasked with providing at least a basic imprimatur of due process to these public hearings about 1/6.
No one claims we have the equivalent of a criminal nor even a civil court trial, and that's fine. Ms. Hutchinson was pretty credible despite offering primarily hearsay and double hearsay.
That said, no reference to news that NBC broke, namely that the two Secret Service officers cited by name are both prepared to testify under oath that the lino accusations are pure hogwash?
This follows no follow-up on claims under oath to the Committee by Trump nabobs that General Milley, who was also deposed, received and referred Trump's pre-1/6 request for 20,000 National Guard.
I agree Trump has lost mainstream conservative support. Good. Democrats should beware of conspicuous failures to connect elementary dots, which may later realign his diehards with e.g. DeSantis.
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